Thanh Quoc Do

Born October 07, 1927

Cholon, Vietnam

was called to God at 8:15 AM on June 28, 2020

at West Hills Hospital, California

Wife:

Nguyễn Đào Thơ (Elizabeth Tho Nguyen), deceased

Daughters:

Đỗ Bích Thủy (Marie Thuy Do), deceased

Đỗ Thanh Vân (Van Do) and husband James Truman Stroud

Đỗ Bích Phượng, (Monique Do) and former husband Lê Minh Mẫn (Michael Le)

Grandchildren:

Viviane Be and husband David Schatanoff

David Raybaud

Patrick LeRaybaud

Great Grandchildren:

Natalie LeRaybaud

Elijah LeRaybaud

Sister:

Đỗ Thị Điều and children (Vietnam)

Funeral gifts:

Donations to Northridge Hospital Foundation

in tribute of Marie Thuy Do

https://www.supportnorthridge.org/ways-to-give/donate-online

Or call 818.885.5341, ext. 2

(Choose “Cancer Centers” as designation of area of greatest need)

Private Memorial Service will be held on July 24, 2020, at 10:00 am,

at Pierce Brothers Valley Oaks

5600 Lindero Canyon Road

Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

Presided by Father Vivian Ben Lima of St. Mel Catholic Church

Due to the current health safety concerns,

physical attendance is limited to 10 people

RSVP: 818-631-2292

Please join us online at Google Meet

Link: meet.google.com/xbn-ufqr-pqg

Thanh was born on October 7, 1927, in Cholon, Vietnam, into an affluent Buddhist family, the sixth child of eight children. His father was a civil servant under the French government, and his mother was the daughter of the Governor of a province in Vietnam. His father was an erudite and was proficient in written and spoken French and Chinese.

He converted to Catholicism at the age of 21 and wedded Tho Dao Nguyen in the same year. Their marriage lasted 67 years, until the death of his beloved wife in 2015. Together, they had three daughters: Marie Thuy Do, born in 1949, who lived with her parents until called to God on August 18, 2017; Van Thanh Do, born in 1950, married to James Truman Stroud; and Monique Do, born in 1953, previously married to Michael Le. They had 3 grandchildren: Viviane Be, age 44; David Raybaud, age 42; and Patrick LeRaybaud, age 41. They also had two great grandchildren: Natalie LeRaybaud, age 20, and Elijah LeRaybaud, age 16.

Thanh met his wife at the National Treasury of Vietnam, where he worked as Accounting Department Chief until the end of the Vietnam war in 1975. Both he and his wife were fluent in French and English. They greatly valued education and sent their daughters to a prestigious French high school in Vietnam, the Lycee Marie Curie.

In 1985, he immigrated to the United States with his wife Tho and his daughter Thuy, and reunited with his daughters Van and Monique in Los Angeles. His past work experience and language abilities allowed him to immediately obtain an administrative job in The Indochinese Refugees Resettlement program. He held the job until his retirement in 1997.

As a young man, Thanh was very athletic and participated in various sports, such as boxing, long distance running, and ping-pong. Both he and his wife participated and received championship awards in ping-pong competitions.

It was divine providence that Thanh was born on October 7, The Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, which explained his profound devotion as a Catholic and his ardent belief in the power of prayers to the Virgin Mary, despite growing up in a Buddhist environment. Both his upbringing as a Buddhist and his adulthood as a Catholic made him a kind, loving, and compassionate person.

Thanh was a devout parishioner of St. Joseph The Worker Church in Winnetka, California, and regularly helped at the altar in daily morning masses and in Sunday masses. He was well-loved and respected in the parish for his quiet and unpretentious spirit of service to the community and had been invited to participate in conducting Catechism classes for people who were interested in the Catholic religion.

Thanh was an exemplary family man, a loving husband and father, and a shining role model to his children and people who knew him. He was also a writer, and a well-known poet, whose poems had been published in the local Vietnamese newspapers.

His departure from this world left his surviving family and friends with a deep sense of loss and grief. His legacy to his progeny is the deeply religious, virtuous, and upstanding way he led his life, his unwavering Catholic faith, and his sincere, honest, and kind treatment of the people who knew and loved him.

May God in his infinite mercy receive Thanh in His Eternal Life, so he may share in the joy of resurrection with his wife Tho and daughter Thuy.

Ông Đỗ Quốc Thạnh sinh ngày 07 tháng 10 năm 1927 tại Chợ Lớn, Việt Nam, là người con thứ sáu trong một gia đình Phật Giáo thuần thành gồm có 8 anh chị em. Thân sinh ông là công chức làm việc cho chính phủ Pháp, một người uyên bác, thành thạo Pháp ngữ và Hoa ngữ. Thân mẫu ông là con gái của Thống Đốc một tỉnh tại Việt Nam.

Trở lại đạo Công giáo khi 21 tuổi, ông kết hôn với bà Nguyễn Đào Thơ trong cùng năm đó. Cuộc hôn nhân tốt đẹp kéo dài 67 năm, cho đến khi người vợ yêu dấu của ông qua đời vào năm 2015. Ông bà có ba cô con gái: người con trưởng Đỗ Bích Thủy, sinh năm 1949, sống với cha mẹ cho đến khi được Chúa gọi về vào ngày 28 tháng 8 năm 2017; người con thứ, Đỗ Thanh Vân, sinh năm 1950, kết hôn với ông James Truman Stroud; và người con út Đỗ Bích Phượng, sinh năm 1953, trước đây kết hôn với Michael Le. Ông bà có 3 cháu ngoại: Viviane Be, 44 tuổi; David LeRaybaud, 42 tuổi, và Patrick LeRaybaud, 41 tuổi. Ông bà được hai chắt: Natalie LeRaybaud, 20 tuổi, và Elijah LeRaybaud,16 tuổi.

Trong thời gian ông làm việc tại Tổng Nha Ngân Khố Quốc Gia Việt Nam với chức vụ Chánh

Sự Vụ văn phòng, ông gặp bà Nguyễn Đào Thơ, người phối ngẫu. Ông đã giữ chức vụ này cho đến khi chiến tranh Việt Nam kết thúc vào tháng 4 năm 1975. Cả hai ông bà đều thông thạo Pháp ngữ và Anh ngữ. Họ rất coi trọng việc giáo dục, nên đã gửi các con đến trường trung học danh tiếng của Pháp tại Việt Nam, Lycee Marie Curie.

Khi còn tuổi thanh niên, ông rất thích thể thao và là vận động viên tham gia nhiều môn thể thao khác nhau, như quyền anh, chạy điền kinh và bóng bàn. Cả hai ông bà đều tham gia và nhận giải thưởng vô địch trong các cuộc thi bóng bàn.

Năm 1985, ông đến được bến bờ tự do Hoa Kỳ cùng với vợ Đào Thơ và con trưởng Bích Thủy, đoàn tụ với hai cô con gái Thanh Vân và Bích Phượng. Gia đình sinh sống tại Los Angeles. Với trình độ, kiến thức và ngôn ngữ sẵn có, ông được nhận ngay vào làm việc hành chánh cho Chương Trình Tái Định Cư Đông Dương và phục vụ cho chương trình này cho đến khi nghỉ hưu vào năm 1997, khi ông tròn 70 tuổi.

Như một sự quan phòng thánh thiêng của Thiên Chúa Tình Yêu, ông chào đời vào ngày 07 tháng 10, ngày lễ Kính Đức Mẹ Mân Côi, vì vậy Đức Mẹ ban cho ông lòng tin vào Chúa và lời cầu nguyện cùng với Mẹ Maria. Ông sinh ra và lớn lên trong một gia đình sùng mộ Phật Giáo, và đã trở thành một tín hữu công giáo với đức tin sâu sắc vào Thiên Chúa; cả hai điều này đã hình thành trong ông một con người tử tế, tốt lành và nhân ái.

Là một tín hữu đạo đức thuộc giáo xứ St. Joseph the Worker tại Winnetka, ông thường xuyên phục vụ giúp lễ bàn thờ trong các Thánh Lễ sáng sớm ngày thường và Chúa Nhật. Với tâm tình sốt sắng, phục vụ trong âm thầm, ông được nhiều người quý mến và mời cộng tác trong Chương Trình Giáo Lý Dự Tòng giúp cho những người muốn tìm hiểu đức tin công giáo.

Trong gia đình, ông là người chồng, người cha mẫu mực, hết lòng thương mến vợ con và là gương sáng cho con cháu trong gia đình, cũng như đối với những ai được dịp quen biết ông.

Ông cũng là nhà văn, nhà thơ nổi tiếng, có nhiều bài thơ do ông sáng tác được các báo Việt Ngữ trong vùng đăng tải.

Ông ra đi để lại nhiều thương tiếc sâu xa cho gia đình và bạn hữu. Gia tài ông để lại cho con cháu là đời sống đạo đức, niềm tin kính Thiên Chúa đã hướng dẫn và giúp ông vượt qua bao thử thách, và sống trung thực, tử tế với mọi người.

Nguyện xin Thiên Chúa thương xót đón nhận linh hồn ông Phêrô vào Nước Vĩnh Hằng, cùng chia sẻ niềm vui Phục Sinh với vợ Đào Thơ và con trưởng Bích Thủy.

You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.

Dad left his home that he proudly owned after years of hard work, taking the bus to and from his office, always arriving early, always the last one to leave. He left his home and came to live with my husband and me because mom was getting seriously ill and my older sister Marie was slowly losing her battle with cancer. He left his home because he needed help to take care of his beloved wife and daughter. Dad went from being the bread winner, the owner of his own place, the patriarch, to being a dependent, living in his daughter’s house, adjusting to her way of running the household.

As we all focused on Mom and Marie, Dad’s needs were lost in the shuffle. His exile from his home, then the loss of Mom and of my sister Marie finally took a toll on him. He sought and found refuge in his poems and his prayers, and his mind started to wander.

Dad was a complex man, like the beautiful, multi-layered hydrangea flower. He was a man of deep emotion, a sentimental man with a strong desire to understand and be understood, a man infinitely proud of who he was and what he had achieved, yet a man somewhat awkward socially, and at the same time a charmer, capable of making everyone’s heart melt.

When I was a really young child, dad taught me French every night so I can pass the entrance exam into the big Lycee. I remember a few startling whacks on my thick skull when my focus went astray. I also remember the big reward after each session every night, when my sisters and I got to hail the street vendors into our courtyard and watch with anticipation our favorite desserts dished out to each of us. Those late night treats became an intrinsic, sweet part of growing up for us three sisters.

I also remember my dad on his Vespa, piling us all on it, with two of us girls in front of him, and mom and one of us in the back. I loved those rides around town, knowing they would inevitably end at some restaurant with some scrumptious food. That feeling of innocent carelessness was short lived, as I became more socially conscious, brushing shoulders with rich classmates from prominent families at the French high school, and feeling ashamed of dad and his little Vespa. I am here today, filled with pride for my dad and his Vespa, but mostly for his love and dedication for his family, his integrity, and his deep faith in God. Dad taught me everything I know about human decency, about responsibility and loyalty, about nurturing the people you love, and about how to make friends and keep friends. He taught me those things by the way he lived his life, and by the love and affection he gave us, all three of his daughters.

“You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” The truth is, I did know what I had. I just did not think I was going to lose it.

Yet, dad is not really gone, and we did not lose him. He is with us though our sweet memories of him, through the poems he wrote, and through the principles he instilled in us. He is with us in our dreams, in a fleeting, familiar silhouette we see in the streets. He is with us in the food we eat that he used to love, in the church bells we occasionally hear, in the soft murmur of the winds through the leaves, in the pitter-patter of the rain on our windows.

Most importantly, Dad is with me, when I tend to my hydrangeas in the garden. He is with me and never left me. A dear friend told me, at the news of his passing, “Now you have your own special saint in Heaven who can pray for you and yours.” Therefore, Dad, go in peace to God. You are on our mind, in our heart, in our breath, in all we do, wherever we go. Pray for us as we complete our voyage on this earth in hope to reunite with you one day.

His long life spanned almost a century of war and strife, through the Second World War, the Korean war, the war in Vietnam, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Thanh Do was a man of peace, a devout Catholic who pursued the Gospel of love of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace.

I only knew him for about 33 years of his long life, but I became a member of his family in 1993, so I saw him up close and personal for many years. This gave me the opportunity to gage the character of the man.

I came to know him as an educated man, and a man of learning, speaking Vietnamese, French and the English of his adopted country, the United States. He read the Los Angeles Times newspaper on a daily basis and he kept up on U.S. politics, the economy and social movements.

What really surprised me, in fact what really amazed me was that he became something of an expert on American sports, including of all things American football. I used to ask myself how a gentleman from Viet Nam could not just develop an interest in the National Football League. But he did. And it is a fact that he advised me that he had analyzed this or that game and he gave me the winner. I would have been much better off in the past if I had always followed that advice. He picked the Super Bowl winner several years in a row and, as I stated, it was amazing.

Family was paramount to him and the result of that was three intelligent and able daughters, each speaking three or even more languages. I think of this as his legacy to the United States, as he will live through his children and grand- children. All their accomplishments will, in a sense, have come from him.

I am always going to remember Thanh Do and me going to the sports bar on a Sunday afternoon and having hamburgers and French fries and watching the Denver Broncos play football. And I will never forget his devotion to the Catholic Church, his going to Mass almost every day, rain or shine, hot or cold. He went no matter what. In the last five years I took him each Sunday to early Mass and when I would pick him up most of the time he would ask me if I wanted donuts for breakfast. He knew I loved donuts so we would go and he would buy.

We shared the same house for the last six years and a half, and during that time, I saw him up close and personal and I got to know him even better. And I grew to both admire and love him for the always kind words he had for me. And I know that he loved me too because he told me so. I shall miss him terribly.